2025: The year of unexpected change

Many a time I've started off a blog post by apologizing for not having posted for a long time. This time I make no apologies. I want to assure everyone that I'm still in the SCA, but as for other changes in my life ... I didn't ask for them.

Last Christmas -- December 25, 2024 -- I had a really nice day with my partner, Nick. We opened our presents, watched the Disney Christmas parade on TV, and had three great meals, including his family's traditional roast beef dinner with blue cheese sauce. Nick cooked it all. Then, after dinner, he started feeling lousy and ... long story short, he died in the emergency room. He had a sudden large hemorrhage in his abdomen (not his aorta, but another major artery).

Needless to say, his death flipped my world upside down. My SCA friends, from my landlord and landlady (whom I met at my very first SCA event in January 2004) to recent acquaintances, have been completely kind and supportive as I process everything that has happened.

Although Nick and I met at Pennsic in 2005, he stopped playing in the SCA in 2006, if I recall correctly. He was just more interested in watching science fiction on TV. However, he never stopped me from going out to SCA events and activities and having a good time with my pals. Since this blog is supposed to be about my medieval activities, I'll focus on that topic.

In my last post I mentioned a posh, all-day feast called Highland Hearthglow. It was a smashing success, with four well-documented courses of extravagant French dishes from venison to eel pie. (In case you're wondering, the latter tasted like fresh-water fish.) Candles on the tables and a gaming room downstairs added to the medieval ambiance. If you're wondering what the event looked like, go to this page for a slideshow, the menu, etc.

I've kept up with all the SCA events and activities I would have attended had Nick not passed away. I still dance with Three Left Feet and sing with Laydes Fayre. I learned, way back when I was a young adult, about the power of social activities to elevate one's mood during times of struggle. I had been laid off from my first post-college professional job, and I spent the wintertime weeks between that employment and my next job getting involved in the local community theater group, which was staging A Man for All Seasons. I was the "stage secretary," meaning that I made the rehearsal coffee, phoned people who didn't show up for rehearsal, and occasionally stood in for missing cast members. These mundane tasks nevertheless brightened up what would have been otherwise a dreary, depressing time of my life.

Anyhow... Since Nick died, I've been to a baker's dozen SCA events and demos, including Hearthglow, AwesomeCon (the "comic con" for Our Nation's Capital), and Pennsic War 52. I've had to make adjustments, such as sharing a paid pet sitter with my landlord and landlady for the two-plus weeks of Pennsic. (Nick used to stay home and take care of all the cats.) Certainly I didn't sew all the garb I had hoped to create during the winter. The fabric from Dame Brenna's stash is still in my storage unit, and the other fabric I bought during Joann's going-out-of-business sale is still sitting in a large bag under my kitchen table.

At Pennsic this year, I had a generally positive experience. Now, the first week ("Peace Week") was stupidly hot and humid. I mean, the temperature hovered above 80 degrees (F) at 11 p.m. However, I wasn't there for the entire week; I had to drive back to Maryland for a three-day seminar called "Quantum Information for Science Communicators." Why, yes, I really do lead an interesting life! Then I returned "Forward Into the Past" (an old SCA catchphrase) to find that the weather up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, had changed. It was NICE! Lower 80s during the day, 60s at night, and MUCH lower humidity. And, unlike last year, no rain! Huzzah!

Through Pennsic University I taught a class on "circle dances," as I had done in 2024, because my friend Patches asked me to teach something. And when the Dean of European Dance asks you to do something, you do it. 😀 Also at her request, I led the dance portion of the Blue Feather Ball. It's the big social event for Clan Blue Feather at Pennsic. We didn't have too many people showing up for dance practice at the dance tent, but participation was more enthusiastic once we moved the dancing to the Great Hall. The ball organizers didn't have a wireless microphone, so it was a bit hard for me to make myself heard among the general din reflecting off the concrete floor, but I think people had a good time anyway. It helped that I had a good turnout of musicians, too.

On another day, I led a "meetup" (scheduled as a Pennsic University class) of people interested in the Slavic Interest Group. The group was founded at Pennsic in 1995, when the former Soviet Union states were still getting the hang of being separate countries and people in Western nations were just trying out this World Wide Web thing. The group's founder doesn't really play in the SCA anymore, so I would like to try to keep the group going. About a dozen people attended, although one fellow of Ukrainian descent dominated the conversation.

The highlight of my War: my friend Patches was elevated to the Order of the Pelican at Atlantian Great Court on the second Wednesday of Pennsic. The ceremony was outstanding and I am so proud of my friend. Vivat to Magistra Sonya Flicker called Patches!!!

Giving thanks

I've been busy with non-SCA things for a couple of months, but of course "my medieval life" is never far from my mind. Let me summarize things here on Thanksgiving Day.

First of all, service. A few months ago, I took over the role of baronial chronicler. The previous chronicler had been doing the job for seven or eight years. Guess I'm stuck with it for a while. 😃 It's really not that difficult for someone who has been writing and editing for a long, long time. The two hardest things are (a) remembering to get going on the next issue and (b) making the notes of the last baronial business meeting sound coherent.

My other piece of general service is my role as Sea Tyger Pursuivant -- the "heraldic education deputy" for the College of Heralds and Scribes of Atlantia. (I don't do the scribal education part, though.) My task over the next couple of weeks is to contact some people and convince them to teach heraldry classes at the next University of Atlantia session, which is completely online. That session also the weekend after a virtual Known World Heralds and Scribes Symposium; I guess we'll be having those every winter now, because not everyone can get to the summer sessions in person.

And now for A&S...

I am still a member of Laydes Fayre and enjoying it. At one of our rehearsals in September, we held a mini-shower for a member who was expecting a baby. She gave birth, right on her due date, to a healthy baby boy named Declan. We'll also have a cookie exchange at our December rehearsal.

Several of us Laydes who also play instruments have formed an ad hoc mini-consort to perform at an upcoming event called Highland Hearthglow. The Barony of Highland Foorde (the whole northwestern region of Maryland) is holding a cozy day-long banquet event at a lodge in Thurmont that is usually affordable to the wedding-industrial complex. It sounds very posh in a 14th-century, High Middle Ages sort of way. Our mini-consort will be performing several pieces that are NOT dance music. I am no expert, but in general these pieces are slower and easier to play than most of the dance music of the era. You just have to watch out for a few weird bits like occasional irregularities in the time signatures. I think we will sound great together. (Incidentally, I'm playing the soprano recorder. No way do I know enough ukulele for this. I've really put the uke on the back burner with all my mundane work lately. I should really get back into it.)

(Also, the whole Laydes Fayre group will perform at both Hearthglow and Lochmere's Midwinter's Revel. One of the pieces we're rehearsing is called "Ave Maris Stella," which I believe means "Hail the Star of the Sea.")

Of course I am still a member of Three Left Feet. We still rehearse on Monday nights during Storvik fighter practice. I went to a couple of dances at Pennsic 51 (since I helped publicize them, after all). Pennsic wasn't even my biggest dance event of the year; that would be the Known World Music and Dance Symposium, held just outside Indianapolis at the fairgrounds where the SCA 50-Year event took place in 2016. It was a long drive, but I'm glad I went.

With all this musical stuff going on, it's not surprising that I haven't done other A&S stuff lately. At least I've finally hit a holiday lull in my mundane work, so I can pick up a needle and thread again. I have some mending projects to do and a linen chemise that I started sewing two years ago. Plus, I would like to make at least one totally new dress. To that end, I picked up a bin full of really nice fabric -- mostly linen and wool -- from the estate of the late Dame Brenna, who was quite the fabric hoarder in her lifetime. My non-SCA partner is annoyed that I acquired a bunch of fabric when I don't have much storage space, so I'll have to figure out some place to put my new stash until it gets sewn. I'm thankful that I received a copy of The Medieval Tailor's Assistant (2nd edition) for my most recent birthday; it will certainly help with all that sewing!

One final thing I am doing: I am knitting myself a pair of socks. Nothing special or SCA-accurate. Just a pair of socks, because I have not knitted socks in several years.

Report on Pennsic 51 (finally)

On August 9 I returned from Pennsic War 51, up there at Cooper's Lake in western Pennsylvania. I spent 12 days at war, instead of a week like last year. It was the 20th anniversary of my first Pennsic in 2004 -- a personal milestone, though I didn't crow about it much.

This year's war was ... harder than usual. It rained buckets on the first full day I was there (Tuesday of Peace Week). We had some more rain off and on, especially on Saturday morning of the middle weekend, and then more downpours came on the Tuesday of War Week. We were supposed to get hit with Tropical Storm Debby on Friday of War Week, but fortunately we had just drizzles and the bulk of the storm went farther east.

When it wasn't raining, the weather became instantly hot and very humid. It was as if a giant switch had flipped. I had a hard time feeling comfortable at any time. My tent (probably the side windows) leaked during the downpours and the puddles lingered despite my attempts to mop them up. Some of my dirty laundry got soaked. By the end of my time at Pennsic, even the "dry" items inside my tent felt slightly damp and clammy.

Our Southwind camp kitchen at the end of one downpour:

On top of all this, one of the 9,235 people who entered the Pennsic site left in a body bag. After one of the big rainstorms, Pennsic leadership sent out a Facebook message that Wroxeter Road was closed because it was so muddy, although I don't think it was any more rutted or muddy than the other roads that cross grassy fields. (My household camps on the corner of Wroxeter Road and Long Way.) Several of my campmates have been in what can broadly be termed public safety jobs: cop, 911 dispatcher, ER nurse, Army medic. So perhaps they are used to seeing state police cruisers and the coroner's van roll by. I personally felt a bit rattled. That evening my encampment had a heartily humorous bardic circle (under the round canopy we call "the Onion," because it was still drizzling), but I decided to crawl into bed early.

Still, not everything at Pennsic 51 was bad or sad. Several friends received well-deserved awards from Their Majesties of Atlantia. I volunteered at the 25th Children's Fete, where I saw the SCA versions of the Disney Princesses:

I took one class (on beginner ukulele) and taught one class (on "circle dances" such as Sellenger's Round and Gathering Peascods). Normally I'm too hot and tired to go anywhere near the European dance tent during the day, but I wanted to help my friend Patches, who served as Dean of European Dance for this year's Pennsic. To help give her programs visibility, I wrote an article about European dance at Pennsic 51 and it made the front page of the Pennsic Independent. (This sounds like a huge deal, but the Independent changed ownership this year and was hurting for content. Still, I'm pleased that my friend's dance-organizing efforts got such great publicity!)

Here's a selfie of yours truly near the sign that points to, and shows the mileage to, all the different kingdoms of the SCA:

(Yeah, of course, you can't see the whole sign, just the Atlantian device on it.)

* * * * * *

As I write this, Pennsic has been over for six weeks or so and is starting to fade into the mists of the SCA's own history. I enjoyed Battle on the Bay in early September, but I probably won't attend any events until November or December, because the October events are way down south in our fair Kingdom. And I've got mundane work to do. But I have plans and hope to share them soon!

Starting a new year

Six days into 2024, and things are already happening, SCA-wise.

On New Year's Day my barony had a silk-banner-painting activity at a community center here in the northern part of Storvik. Our current Queen has been handing out banners painted with the word "Inspiration" at the events she attends within Atlantia, and our own Dame Emma West is in charge of the project. She did all the fabric preparation and the outlines of the design, and about 20 of us took turns coloring in the design. It's rather fun and not stressful at all. We finished painting two banners and probably could have done a third that afternoon. Here is a picture I took:

That's the one I worked on.

On Wednesday I commemorated a special day in my life. It was the 20th anniversary of my very first SCA event, Storvik Yule Revel. Here's what I posted in our baronial Facebook group about it:

Twenty years ago TODAY, I went to my first-ever SCA event: Storvik Yule Revel! It was in our fighter practice hall at St. Andrew's.

Outside the hall, a friendly young couple named Pedro and Devora accosted me and introduced themselves. Once we got past Tirzah at troll, Pedro and Devora introduced me to their Peers, Herveus and Megan, who explained tablet weaving to me -- I had never seen it before. Taira no Akiyo taught a class in spinning wool with a drop spindle. I watched some people dance and sat in the audience for Baroness Johanna's court. Finally, Pedro and Devora invited me to sit at their table with their Peers for a delicious feast.

I was just blown away by how welcoming everyone was to me! Obviously, I decided to stick around and get a membership and you all know the rest of the story.

Sadly, not everyone who was at that Storvik Yule Revel is with us today (Dame Brenna, Sir Gauss, Pedro...). Because of that cozy little event, though, the SCA has become a big part of my life. I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has welcomed me along the way.

I hope I brought some warm memories to folks. Also, I hope that just maybe someday we will hold another Storvik Yule Revel in the community center. (It's been 10 years since Kingdom Twelfth Night was held in northern Atlantia ... fancy event sites are just too expensive around here.)

Incidentally, Storvik has also revived the tradition of a monthly A&S night in person. I couldn't go this week, but I hope to attend in February.

Wrapping up the calendar year

Greetings! Before the Gregorian calendar ticks up another notch, I thought I would sum up my SCA experiences for 2023.

In general, it's been a good year. By my count, I went to 11 in-person SCA events and activities, including Pennsic 50, as mentioned in the previous post. I have also attended three online/virtual events -- we're not done with those, even though the pandemic state of emergency is over. Quite honestly, most Atlantians are thankful that the Kingdom's annual business meeting, known as Unevent, is now entirely virtual, as it makes officers from the entire length of Atlantia -- some 660 miles, more or less, if you drive -- able to attend without much inconvenience.

What have I done within the SCA?

In terms of arts & sciences, I'd describe the year as moderately productive. I continue to rehearse and perform with Laydes Fayre, the interbaronial all-women singing group. Mistress Arianna moved me down from second soprano to alto. I'm no soloist, but I've been learning to harmonize. Having MIDI files for home practice helps me greatly.

I continue to dance with the Three Left Feet group, and went to a few dances at Pennsic. Earlier this year I slipped on a patch of mud and wrenched my knee, which set me back a bit, but it's all better now.

A few weeks ago, I had some fun with SCA dance music. At the Dun Carraig Baronial Investiture, there was an A&S competition called "Make the Laurels Cry," which was for "best use of a modern material in an arts competition." Laydes Fayre had been considering a performance involving a modern pop song in the style of an English madrigal, but we didn't get it down well enough to sing it in front of the Queen and other Laurels. (To really make such a mash-up effective, a performance has to be tight.) So I wondered how I could enter the competition as an individual. I didn't really want to spend dollars and hours sewing a medieval dress out of neon-green polyester, or something like that, so I kept thinking about music. I got my old Casio keyboard out of storage and started experimenting.

Back in my teen years I used to play a two-manual-plus-pedals organ well enough to serve as a church organist, but I never quite got the single-manual style of playing. It turns out that not only does this model of electronic keyboard play major chords with a single touch of the left finger, but it also starts and stops the chords in time with the rhythm box (or whatever you call the built-in synthesized percussion sounds). So I did some experimenting. A fair number of English country dance tunes are in minor keys, but I managed to "funk up" "Sellinger's Round" and reset "Petit Riens" to a jaunty ska beat. I practiced these adaptations for a couple of days before the event ... and Her Majesty loved the results! I even sparked a conga line going across the floor! So I ended up winning the competition (the prize was a large multi-pack of Sharpie pens). I felt a tiny bit bad because I'm sure some of the other competitors put a lot more effort into their entries ... but I think Her Majesty was looking for humor and whimsy.

I will address the "SCA service" topic in a future entry. Happy New Year!

Pennsic 50 Frenzy!

 It's starting! Today is Opening Day for Pennsic 50! (I rather hate to call it a "War," given what has been going on in Ukraine for more than a year, and given that nobody's awarding "War Points" this year.)

And I'm going! Not right away -- today is the arrival day for land agents and merchants. But since I didn't get to go last year, and then we had a couple of years off for The Plague, I feel as if I've been away from "home" for an awfully long time. (Then again, I haven't been to my home state of Massachusetts since December 2018. My last Pennsic was #48 in 2019.)

My impending trek feels almost like a miracle. The past seven or eight months of my non-SCA life have been rough. Fortunately, good friends have been beside me with help and advice.

Now I've had to resurrect my packing list from FOUR years ago and assemble everything I'll need for this trip. I'm not used to this anymore, but it feels good.

Another way this year is different from every other year: I won't have my own car at Pennsic. (I need new wheels, but I don't want to make a hasty decision about that before my vacation.) I'm sharing a ride to Pennsic with a woman and her three kids, all newcomers to Pennsic. In a way, it'll be lovely to see everything with fresh eyes.

Gains and losses, March 2023

 Happy Day of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania! (Remember, it's the tiny little country with two "independence days.")

My personal life is still somewhat chaotic, most recently because my car was rear-ended at a stop light on March 3. It's somewhat drivable, but without the right rear taillight or turn signal. Also, the right rear wheel well is bent (bad for driving over bumps) and there's an exhaust scent that wasn't noticeable before the crash. This was the LAST thing I needed.

Fortunately, I had already made plans to drive someone else's car (with the owner inside it too) to our Kingdom Arts & Sciences Festival on the 4th. It was the first time in five years that I've been able to attend KASF. Since Laydes Fayre didn't have a scheduled performance, I was free to wander around and admire all the wonderful exhibits and gorgeous garb. Yes, I took pictures, but they're on my non-phone camera, so they haven't hit the Internet yet.

Finally, a personal sadness. Dame Brenna of Storvik was the very first person I met in the SCA. When I started considering getting involved in the SCA in the fall of 2003, I looked up my local branch and noticed that it had a weekly "sewing night" on Thursdays. Since the only requirement for attending an SCA event is making an attempt at pre-17th-century clothing, I thought I'd better show up there and get an idea of what to wear. So one chilly, damp night I knocked at her door and introduced myself and explained why I was there. Dame Brenna and her friends answered my questions and helped me figure out what was acceptable and how to start sewing it. In recent years, after her husband (and the love of her life), Sir Gauss, died, Dame Brenna attended far fewer events. I meant to catch up with her, but a few days ago she passed away. I think she was a bit short of her 69th birthday.

Life is short. Spend time with your friends.

Status report, February 2023

Happy Lithuanian Independence Day! At least the independence that hearkens back to 1918. Remember, Lithuania is the little country with two "independence days."

I apologize for not having kept up with this blog. I have not given up the SCA. Since the last entry here, I've been to a few local events and have regularly attended the Three Left Feet dance practice on Monday nights. (Three Left Feet is not, strictly speaking, an SCA dance troupe, but we share space with the ongoing Storvik fighter practices.) For the past year or so, I've been singing with Laydes Fayre, an interbaronial all-women group directed by the talented Mistress Arianna Morgan of Lochmere.

Never fear, I haven't given up on heraldry! I am the Sea Tyger Pursuivant, in charge of rounding up people to teach heraldry classes. (Of course, I totally forgot to register for the most recent University of Atlantia session a couple of weeks ago, so I couldn't take any of these classes. Ah, well...)

I haven't been doing much A&S stuff because I have been undergoing a lot of upheavals in my life, mostly related to my finances (my health is fine). Someday I will make myself some new garb, but this is not the time for that.

Status report, August 2022

 So ... what have I been doing since I taught "The SCA on a Budget"? It's certainly been a while...

As we make the transition from "pandemic" to "endemic" covid-19, I have been attending both in-person and virtual events and classes. Of course, it's always more soul-satisfying to see people in three dimensions, but sometimes it's just not feasible, either because of covid-19 precautions or great distance. Let me summarize the year 2022 so far.

Early in the year, I watched the virtual court at Kingdom Twelfth Night in January and took classes online -- one at a Virtual Known World Heralds and Scribes Symposium (KWHSS), and several at a virtual session of the University of Atlantia. I skipped Bright Hills Baronial Birthday; some years I go to it and some years I don't, but I was still concerned about the "omicron variant" of our least favorite virus.

As springtime rolled around, I participated in a successful demonstration at Costume-Con 40 (more on that in a bit) and sold a bit of excess gear at "Lochmart," the flea market that the Barony of Lochmere holds at its annual April event.

The first weekend in May, I went to Spring Crown Tourney, held in the Barony of Stierbach. Nobody I asked could remember the last time, if any, that Atlantia has held a competition for the Crown indoors (our parent Kingdom, the East, does it fairly often), but because of the heavy rains that occurred before and during the event, the staff moved all the proceedings indoors to a couple of barns. (Fortunately, the event had been long scheduled for a county fairground.) The main hall was rather crowded, and only two lists could be set up instead of four, so the preliminary rounds took a lot longer than anticipated. If I recall rightly, the final round -- between a super-Duke and a Knight who had never reigned before -- happened around 3:30 or 4 p.m. (The Knight who had never reigned before became a first-time Prince.) The damp cold drove a deep chill into our bones; by the time afternoon Royal Court was over, I could hardly wait to slog out to my car in the parking lot and crank up the heater.

June brought another public demo, this time at AwesomeCon (again, more on that in a bit), and a few online classes at another virtual KWHSS, this time hosted by the brand-new Principality of Vindheim in the Kingdom of Ansteorra. In fact, two classes I took were taught by my friend in Lochac, Mistress ffride wolfsdottir, who is an extraordinary researcher.

Storvik held Novice Tourney a bit later than usual -- shortly after the Fourth of July weekend. I did not go to Pennsic this year for financial reasons. I'm a freelance science writer mundanely, and I finished up a feature article on the opening weekend of Pennsic and got paid for it at the end of Pennsic. That's actually a speedy payment in the world of freelance writing -- some poor souls have to wait months for their financial rewards -- but the timing did not work out well for Pennsic 49. Oh, well, next year is Pennsic 50, and after missing Pennsic 40, you'd better believe I am bound and determined to attend Pennsic come hell or high water or any other disaster induced by climate change.

This post is already getting pretty long, so I'll save the reports on the two public demos for the next entry.

Online "SCA on a Budget" class

Tonight (Thursday, January 20) I will be teaching an online version of the "SCA on a Budget" class that I did at the last in-person University of Atlantia before the covid-19 plague began. (If you want the link, send me an email or something. I don't want to post the Zoom link publicly, although it is available in several Atlantia-related Facebook groups.)

 The online version of my 2019 class handout is here:

 https://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/p/the-sca.html 

One thing to note: Lady Katherine Ashewode's page on the East Kingdom Wiki has changed slightly. It is now https://wiki.eastkingdom.org/wiki/Something_to_start_with. Same information, though.